POLSON — A grant recently awarded to the Polson Police Department aims to help with pedestrian safety, especially during the summer tourism season.
"There's a lot of people just kind of wandering around in the community, and especially in the height of tourist season, people might not necessarily know where they're going," said Carol Lynn Lapotka who owns handMADE Montana along Main Street.
Once the summer starts and tourists flock to Polson, pedestrian safety takes a back seat.
"Traffic in the summertime is significantly more and a lot of the people that are driving through, like on Highway 93, just expect that you can just go fast throughout all of town and don't realize that there's a lot of foot traffic that happens downtown to the different parks," Lapotka said. "Crossing Highway 93 can be a bit dangerous during those busy times of the year when someone isn't familiar with kind of our local traffic speeds."
During the off-season, such as fall and winter, Polson has around 6,500 people but in the summer the population more than doubles to 14,000, according to Polson Police Chief George Simpson.
"People forget about those pedestrians, particularly in school zones," Chief Simpson said. "I mean these are children, right, that are here, or their caregiver, their parents, that's dropping them off, picking them up, or school bus stops. People tend to speed through those intersections, and they just don't think or take the extra second to realize 'well, wait, school is in session, there's children around,' right, that the speed limit has changed."
A grant recently awarded to the Polson Police Department will be used to help with pedestrian safety and public communication.
"This grant is additional funding so we can buy two speed trailers, which are the radar detection that you see on the roadway," Chief Simpson said. "It tells cars how fast they're going, and it has the posted speed limit. We're going to get two of those that we can put in school zones."
The signs will be able to be moved around the city nd even the county depending on the need. During the summer, a sign could be closer to the entrance to Polson but during the winter, the signs could be closer to the school zones.
“There's lots of boats coming across," Chief Simpson said. "There's lots of kids that like to go jump in the lake, cool off, jump in the river. And those kids are just running around, sometimes on the crosswalk, sometimes not. But if we had a messaging board that says, you know 'hey, watch for this' or 'watch for that.' Or, if there's a special event in the summer where there's lots of pedestrian traffic, that would be very helpful."
Speed trailers aren’t the only resource the grant will bring to the city.
“A variable message board, which is kind of a billboard on a trailer, and we can say when there's road closures or fire seasons, if visibility is low, just to kind of enhance motorist safety," Chief Simpson said. "Particularly if you're not from here, and you're just passing through here on your way to one of the parks, you know, you'll know what's going on."
The message board will also offer real-time information during fire season and other emergency situations.
“I think the number one thing with the fire season is communication," Chief Simpson said. "Some people get their communication on their phone, some people get on the website, some people on television, but if you're just passing through and you're going to one of those parks, you don't really understand what's going on or where to get that source."
The move to implement more safety measures across Polson is already bringing some relief to residents.
"I think the important message for a lot of that is like the why people should slow down because it's for all the children and just general pedestrians, people are making choices nowadays to walk or ride their bikes more often than just driving," Lapotka said. "So, keeping that part of our community safe is really important."
